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New York Judge Juan Merchan — who's presiding over Donald Trump's hush money case — imposed a gag order on the ex-president last week which included banning him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and jurors.

However, it left out the judge and his family — and Trump has taken advantage of that.

A Republican congressman laid into his right-wing colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) Sunday for her push to remove the House speaker.

Greene made a move to oust Mike Johnson (R-LA) from the role earlier this month after the Speaker supported passing a House spending bill that includes aid for Ukraine. Though she introduced it, no vote has yet been scheduled on the motion to vacate the speaker's seat.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said Sunday that he would not buy Bibles being sold by former President Donald Trump.

During an interview on CBS' Face the Nation, guest host Ed O'Keefe asked Turner about the former president's decision to profit off the sale of Bibles on Easter.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Sunday that Americans should be "incensed" over a Democratic plan to table the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the Senate.

During an interview on Fox News, guest host Jason Chaffetz asked Blackburn about Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) intentions to send Mayorkas' impeachment articles to the Senate for a trial.

CNN’s Dana Bash interrupted a Republican Congressman Sunday as he tried to skirt a question about Donald Trump’s attacks on the daughter of a judge in his hush money trial.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) had been dancing around Bash’s question about the ex-president's social media attacks targeting Loren Merchan, in which he named her and claimed her work as a political consultant proved his trial was biased.

Former President Donald Trump on Easter lashed out at "cowards and weaklings" in the Republican Party.

In an Easter morning message, the former president expressed dissatisfaction with one Republican who is retiring early despite pleas from GOP leaders.

Fox News hosts complained that President Joe Biden's administration had a plan to introduce paganism at Easter — despite the holiday's roots in pagan traditions.

After Fox & Friends showed off Easter basket ideas complete with decorated eggs and bunny ears, they took on Biden for issuing a proclamation for the transgender day of visibility.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Editorial Board on Sunday slammed Donald Trump’s attempt to return to the White House — but offered up voices stronger than the writers’ own to make the case.

The editorial relied on the words of Trump’s own former allies and colleagues.

Donald Trump is being urged to move past bitterly held grudges over Republicans he considers disloyal — or risk destroying his party in November, according to a report.

Members of the House GOP are increasingly worried that the former president can’t move on from perceived slights of the past, and that he’s more focused on revenge than he is on victory.

Former President Donald Trump had an online meltdown after a report that clients of the daughter of his hush money trial judge brought in millions by using the case as a fundraising tool.

The New York Post reported Saturday that two Democrats who are clients of Loren Merchan’s Authentic Campaigns political consulting firm brought in $93 million in campaign donations after detailing the criminal case in solicitation emails.

Donald Trump's Bible-hawking Easter message was skewered by Saturday Night Live in its latest cold open, in which the story of the resurrection of Jesus was re-told featuring the holy book-hawking ex-president as the Messiah.

"That's right, it's Easter!" Trump — played by James Austin Johnson — announces as he strides out of the tomb holding up his $60 book.

Have you ever wondered why so many images depicting the crucifixion show Jesus with a very defined, slender and toned body? Either slim, but with a six-pack, or displaying muscles and brawn. While these images are hardly a reflection of what little can be surmised about the historical Jesus, they certainly reflect social and cultural ideas about masculinity and idealised notions of manhood.

In many images of the crucifixion, Jesus is depicted as both strong and vulnerable. Crucifixion paintings showing a muscular messiah suggest that Jesus could perhaps physically have overcome his fate, had he wanted to. This interpretation of the crucifixion story amplifies the emotional and spiritual strength of his sacrifice.

The Bible is full of strong men and pumped prophets. Working the land is Adam’s punishment for eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Noah builds a massive ark, filling it with every bird, animal and food. Samson has superhuman strength in the book of Judges – his only weakness is women.

The opening of Matthew’s Gospel details Jesus’ genealogy and it is clear that he has other hardmen in his DNA. It speaks of Abraham and David, particularly. In Genesis 14, we learn how Abraham gathered an army of over 300 men and launched an attack to save his family. In Genesis 21, he also fathers a child at the age of 100 – his son, Isaac.

David is also mentioned as an ancestor of Jesus. He was famous for killing Goliath, whose immense stature has been estimated as 9ft 9in. In the Book of Samuel, David kills 200 Philistine men and brings their foreskins to King Saul, so that he will allow him to marry his daughter, Michal.

While some portrayals of Jesus have caused outrage, like those, for example, that represent him as feminine or sexualised, a similar outcry does not seem to follow the muscular Jesus.

There is a story in the gospels of Jesus’s physical strength, when he drives out those who were buying and selling in the temple, overturning tables in his anger. In the New Testament, the gospels even narrate a Parable of the Strong Man.

The endurance of physical torture before the crucifixion has been well documented in religious iconography, such as the Stations of the Cross, as well as in films such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). Jesus also has to be mentally strong to overcome Satan, so depictions of his physical strength are perhaps supposed to echo his superhuman, spiritual strength.

‘Behold the man!’

Paintings that depict Jesus with a six-pack have influenced factions of Christianity. In the 19th century, the idea of “muscular Christianity” took hold. The term, invented in 1857, describes those Christians who see moral and religious value in sports.

In his book God’s Gym (1997), professor of religion Stephen Moore explores the quest for Jesus in a perfect human masculine form, and how this is connected to physical culture and male narcissism. Masculine Christian spirituality is often aligned with the values of courage, strength and power.

While his ministry isn’t known for its exercise focus, Jesus’s fitness can be seen in some interpretations of the gospels. He walked for 40 days in the vast wilderness and carried a heavy cross on his back.

An illustration from the Armenian Daniel of Uranc gospel (1433) showing the feeding of the 5,000.

Matenadaran

Through the Eucharist (“take and eat, this is my body”), Jesus’s body became sacrament. This has palpable implications for many modern Christians. If Jesus’s physical fitness is a sign of his holiness, then it is something to aspire to.

Theologian Lisa Isherwood’s book The Fat Jesus (2008) explores Christian women’s weight-loss cultures through programmes such as “Slim for Him”. Feminist theologian Hannah Bacon’s book Feminist Theology and Contemporary Dieting Culture (2019), meanwhile, analyses the problematic use of “sin/syn” to refer to “bad” foods in weight-loss programmes.

For some Christians, depictions of Jesus as strong and muscular represent the ideal of a man’s body. They interpret Biblical stories in ways that mirror these paintings. Many of these groups believe that Biblical ideas of masculinity are under attack. In response, they put on events designed to attract men to church and promote the ideals of biblical manhood. Praising a muscular body ideal for men – and for Jesus – is part of that.

So next time you’re looking at a painting of Jesus in a church or gallery, do remember that such images reflect contemporary social and cultural attitudes to men’s bodies, rather than authenticity, in their artistry.